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British & American accent | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Fakov Diglot Newbie China Joined 5736 days ago 12 posts - 12 votes Speaks: Mandarin*, English Studies: German | Message 1 of 31 17 March 2009 at 4:52am | IP Logged | |||||
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I am just curious how everyone think about these 2 accents.
In mainland China, at least when I was a puiple, all English learning tapes were in British accent,or rather say "standard London accent". I thought London accent sounds graceful,nobel,classic and hated American accent because I felt American accent is too "sweet", too "soft", or in other words "sounds like someone speaking with a hot potato in the mouth". When I grew up, I gradually found American accent is not that bad. It sounds easier than British accent, now I even think a non-native guy who speaks English with strong British accent is abit mincing. Do you guys have the same experience? Did you start learning English with British accent or American? which accent is more acceptable for you? Just curious... 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| stephenk Newbie United States Joined 5737 days ago 28 posts - 33 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Gujarati | Message 2 of 31 17 March 2009 at 5:24am | IP Logged | |||||
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In my opinion, I would assume a lot more people who study outside of school these days in time might lean more toward developing an American accent simply due to the fact that our culture is literally everywhere. While I don't know the statistics, I'm pretty sure that most English language television, music, and the likes in a non-english speaking country would most likely be from America. The British people do make great shows, but not many of them are shown outside of Great Britain, in my opinion. My view obviously isn't going to count for much since I am an American and it's obviously the accent that I speak with, but I would think the influence of our media would play a very important role outside of academia. It might also depend on if the country was a former commonwealth of Great Britain. Places like India, for example, tend to follow more of a British dialect as that is the common medium of instruction.
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| Dark_Sunshine Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5756 days ago 340 posts - 357 votes  Speaks: English*, French | Message 3 of 31 17 March 2009 at 10:04am | IP Logged | |||||
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As a Brit, I'll admit to feeling a little bit put out when I see that so many foreigners prefer to learn American English. On the lang-8 website (mostly Japanese learners) I feel really tempted to 'correct' American spellings/words into English ones, but I manage to resist! I think American English is more popular with people who learn English for business purposes, although I'd agree about the influence of Hollywood movies (oops, I mean FILMS). As far as I can tell, most learners from Europe favour the British way, probably just because we are geographically closer.
In general, I don't understand why people have such strong preferences for one or the other, given that the two are 100% mutually intelligible. Brits have a passive understanding of Americanisms, also due to films- not sure if it works the other way around though. I also see a lot of Brits using American spellings these days, probably because they haven't bothered to change their Microsoft spell checkers from the English (US) default setting to English (UK)... Anyway, I realise you wanted to hear from people who learnt English as a second language, so I'll shut up now... I just had to steal an opportunity for a little rant! :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| .automne Diglot Groupie Norway Joined 5819 days ago 56 posts - 57 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: French | Message 4 of 31 17 March 2009 at 10:15am | IP Logged | |||||
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Well, as Stephenk points out, American culture is ubiquitous, so most people tend to lean towards an American accent by default, at least around here. Personally, though, I prefer British. Not sure why, but I find British accents pleasing to listen to, and by British I don't mean RP, but everything from Scottish and Irish to Cockney and Scouse. I like them all! :) No offense, but American tend to sound a bit bland in my ears, unless the speaker is from a southern state like Texas.
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| Dark_Sunshine Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5756 days ago 340 posts - 357 votes Speaks: English*, French | Message 5 of 31 17 March 2009 at 10:27am | IP Logged | |||||
How about spelling? For example, in your post above, "offense" is American, the British would be "offence". ;-) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| .automne Diglot Groupie Norway Joined 5819 days ago 56 posts - 57 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: French | Message 6 of 31 17 March 2009 at 10:45am | IP Logged | |||||
Ha ha! Yes, I must admit that I usually spell words the way I learnt (learned?) them, without really thinking about consistency. Thus, I write "civilization" because I played the Sid Meier game too much when younger. *hangs head in shame* ;P Edit: By the way, I was not aware of the difference between offence/offense. Duly noted. Edited by .automne on 17 March 2009 at 10:48am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Dark_Sunshine Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5756 days ago 340 posts - 357 votes Speaks: English*, French | Message 7 of 31 17 March 2009 at 10:57am | IP Logged | |||||
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:-) Not a criticism- just an observation! And I need to relax as well- I'm far more fussy about spelling and terminology than I am about accent!
I imagine the American accent is easier for learners of English to achieve than a British one would be, except maybe for native speakers of German, which has more similar vowel sounds. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Alkeides Senior Member Bhutan Joined 6139 days ago 636 posts - 644 votes | Message 8 of 31 17 March 2009 at 11:06am | IP Logged | |||||
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The spelling with "-ize" is etymologically correct and widespread on both sides of the Atlantic until WWII and is still the preferred spelling of the Oxford English Dictionary. The variant with '-yze' on the other hand is an Americanism.
I think non-rhotic accents are the easier for (most) monolingual East Asians to emulate, due to the syllable structure of their languages; although of course, some dialects of Chinese are rhotic and the "R" in Chinese is essentially identical to the common English "R" for many speakers. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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